


The Booth

by jeweniper



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Kissing Booths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-27 03:25:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18189152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeweniper/pseuds/jeweniper
Summary: When she transferred out of the business section, Adora left a lot of, well, unfinished business. What appears to be an opportunity for closure might be anything but, if Catra's got something to say about it.





	The Booth

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in ages, so this was an attempt to get me back into it. For that reason, it probably isn't very good, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. Also finally wrote some catradora, yay

Adora crouches over her seat, ignoring the squeak of glazed plastic as she peers into the mirror. She swipes a damp towel over her lips, reapplies some chapstick. To be honest, she never imagined Glimmer’s last-minute suggestion for her to man the kissing booth would be so...wildly successful. With a tired idleness she digs her fingers into the bowl of donations, remembering the many cheek kisses and lip pecks that have defined her evening. With a yawn she glances back through the cardboard frame of her booth. This fundraiser will be over soon.

 

She nearly chokes on the breath.

 

“Catra,” she calls into the shadows warily, “what are you doing here?”

 

Sure enough, the figure standing just beyond the grasp of the booth’s light steps forward and smiles at her with infuriating ease. “Hey Adora. Just checking to see how your little community service project was going. You know, offer my friendly support.”

 

“Screw you.”

 

This drags the smirk from Catra’s face, replaced by a hard stare that Adora matches for several moments. She hasn’t seen Catra in a while, really, not since transferring from the tight-knit business administration section to the less cut-throat humanities. And though it unsettles her to admit it, Catra looks better, in a way. Her shoulders are held higher and her eyes seem brighter, more calculating. She leans away. “Congrats on your promotion. Things must be so much easier for you now that I’m gone.”

 

Her eyes squint a fraction before the furrow in her brow eases up. “You know, at first I missed you, my partner-in-crime. I missed the drama that always surrounded us and the favoritism that always kept you a step ahead.” She swipes a long nail down the side of the booth, then admires the string of cheap paint that peels away. “In a twisted way, of course. But I see now that you were too close to let me grow. We were too close to let a lot of things grow.”

 

Adora fails to stifle a gasp, thinking back to the end of semester party last year, before things really went to shit. How their outfits had matched as usual, how they’d come together as usual, how they hung back in an unused hallway and admired each other in the weak moonlight, feeling something hotter and more cloying than alcohol between them. How not like-usual that was. A simple crush born of proximity and tense surroundings, an unrequited and overly-passionate thing that was bound to extinguish, nothing more. Right? Her eyes search Catra’s face, the tiny dark freckles and the long lashes framing her closed-off stare. She says nothing.

 

“So, Scorpia thought it’d be nice of me to drop by and support you, as a kind of olive branch. I mean we may not be involved anymore, but that doesn’t mean our years and years of friendship don’t exist, right?” 

 

Her voice is practically a purr, and Adora can’t help but feel trapped, caught at a disadvantage by her sitting position and the glow of the booth light in Catra’s bright eyes. The words make sense yet she cannot stand them. But she has been at this all day, and blames her restlessness on the fatigue. Before she can speak Catra flicks something at her, quick and unforgiving. She catches it on instinct and opens her palm to reveal a dollar coin, the kind that all the subway card machines around town give as change.

 

“A little peck on the lips for your fundraiser. Nothing big,” she continues while Adora gapes at the coin like it’s a tiny black hole.

 

Her heart thuds in her ears, a giant on the run, but everything else is quiet. “Nothing big,” she repeats, before sighing. Even now Catra has this affect on her like no one else, but this peck will be the last. She imagines it like a seal on a letter of retreat, and feels peace. After this, she and Catra will truly be able to go on separate paths, no longer bound to each other by...whatever all these years have been. She straightens up and leans forward, arms loose on the table. “Come here, then.”

 

Fluidly, casually, Catra presses her lips to Adora’s like she were any of the strangers who had done the same earlier that day. Until she brushes a hand beneath her chin, tilting it up and delicately touching her tongue to the soft close of her lips. In surprise she parts, stunned as Catra hums with unabashed pleasure into the gap of Adora’s mouth. Adora shivers, shocked into putty while Catra strokes a hand through her hair and nibbles softly on her bottom lip. She’d never kissed Catra like this, and then realizes through the hazy fog of her brain that she’d never kissed Catra at all. This was supposed to be the peck that ended things before they’d ever begun.

 

When Catra pulls slowly away she chases hungrily, desperate to taste the inside of her mouth again and sighing in relief when Catra meets her with mutual passion. It’s just like all those times teammates would sabotage their projects and Catra would take the blame that should have been Adora’s, the two of them placed unfairly against their supervisor and impossibly against each other. It never should happen. Adora never wants it to stop.

 

With a last soft kiss on the lips, Catra pulls fully away, swallowing the sight of Adora’s swollen lips and half-closed eyes. She smirks in satisfaction and pushes her back, until Adora’s back is flush with the chair, her eyes gaping at her in confusion and surprise. Adora always looks a little stupid when she’s surprised, and it’s one of Catra’s favorite things about her. “Bye bye Adora,” She sing-songs, backing away from the booth until she’s out of its light, before turning completely and walking back the way she’d come. She will never seek her childhood friend out again, because she’s got higher ambitions to worry about, but that doesn’t mean Adora’s preoccupation with her isn’t something she enjoys. Adora tried to end things on her terms when she transferred out in the middle of a project, leaving Catra high and dry. 

 

There’s no way she’s getting away from Catra that easily.

 


End file.
